Coffin Couture

Here’s this week’s reflection. I hope it resonates with you and ask that, if you enjoyed, please comment and share on your social media. Heartfelt thanks for all your support!

Keeping the light on for you,

Carol

Backpacks and shoes scatter as the back door is shoved open by the weight of the day, my work-weary frame pulled by agitated kindergarten twins in a hangry plea for sustenance. Amid the cacophony of snack requests, clanging pots and pans, and diatribe of school day doings, I ponder the most efficient way to sling dinner toward the table. At already six-thirty in the evening, there is no relaxation in sight.

Pasta boils and my brain spins. Amid the frenzy, my phone rings. The cheerful, out-of-state voice with impeccably poor timing from a later zone adds to my angst. 

“Hi honey – it’s Mom. What are you up to?”

“Just walked in the door. Trying like mad to get dinner on the table,” I briskly answer. “Everything okay?”

“Oh – you’re busy, I won’t keep you,” she sweetly croons, “and yes, we are fine, but I just want you to know what I want to wear for my viewing,” she adds brightly. 

I stop stirring. “What? Your viewing?! You just decided this at dinner time on a random Tuesday? You thinkin’ of checkin’ out within the week or what?”

Mom laughs. “Oh no! I’ve just been thinking about it and didn’t want to forget to tell you, so you wouldn’t have to worry with it when the day comes.”

“Uh…Okaaaay?!” I nervously laugh, pausing to align my brain with this unexpected trajectory. “Wait – I thought you wanted to be cremated?” 

“Oh yes, but there’s a viewing first,” Mom quickly assures, giving me the name of the preferred parlor along with a request for a cocktail party after. 

Meanwhile, my little girls have started an even louder hunger plea and I pass them some bread to gnaw on. 

Knowing later is not an option for my mother, I release a sigh of resignation. “Ok, what outfit have you decided on?” 

“Well,” Mom began, “I want to wear that mint green dress your friend made for me.”

“You mean the one you haven’t been able to wear for a few years since you put on weight,” I state flatly. “You still have that?!”

“Oh, that’s not a problem,” Mom quickly counters. “The funeral home just slits it up the back!” Her triumphant disclosure prompts sudden laughter.

“Ok, so let me get this straight – you want to be buried in your “thin” clothes?”

“Yes!” she exuberantly proclaims.

“Ok, mental note to self. Mint green dress. Got it.”

Mom signs off with her upbeat “Ok honey – thanks – I’ll let you go. Love you!”

 “Love you too, Mom.” I hang up, shaking my head in disbelief. 

Back to the task of dinner, my phone rings again. Exasperated while trying to serve my crew, caller ID shows it’s Mom again and I dutifully answer. 

“Hi honey, it’s Mom again. I’ve changed my mind about what I want to be viewed in.”

“That was fast,” I sarcastically offer. 

“Instead of that mint green dress, I think my black slacks, white shell, and black and white houndstooth blazer would be better.” 

“Well, it fits you better,” I inform her, “and you won’t need that slit up the back. But the dress is a brighter, fun color and looks great with a tan. Ya sure?” I ask only half-jokingly, knowing she has likely researched mortuary makeup.

“Yes, it’s just for a few hours, then I’ll be cremated anyway,” she states practically. 

“Ok, as long as you’re sure then, because I don’t want to screw this up,” again shaking my head and rolling my eyes. “And tell me again why we’re concerned about any of this if you want to be cremated and only need your birthday suit?”

“Because I want to look good for the viewing!”

“Alright, mental note updated,” I respond, quickly adding “and you’re not going to call me in five minutes with ANOTHER wardrobe change, are you? Because I won’t be able to keep track!” 

Mom giggles as we sign off for what hopefully will be the rest of the night.

While I cannot make up this kind of crazy, I am also not surprised. Regardless of Mom’s canvas – the house or the family – an overabundance of thought had been assigned to this vanity maven’s mission of keeping up snappy appearances her entire life. Refusing to designate herself “old,” contemplating burial togs in advance was par for fashion control. 

The only daughter, I was tasked by default with keeping Mom’s terminal requests in my memory bank, lest it fall to the opinion of those she deemed less qualified, namely Dad or my brothers. Mom paid keen attention to how friends or relatives looked while laid out among satiny folds, and there would be nothing left to chance for her own plush debut.

These wardrobe requests were thankfully years in advance but provided hysterical fodder for our merciless, slapstick funny family. Even Mom herself laughed as she eventually realized the absurdity of her concerns. 

Mom’s final days were sadly spent in nightgowns and a hospice bed; unglamorous, yet often the case at the end of even the most colorful of lives. Exhausted and not looking her best, she no longer sought a viewing or party, her quiet passing a peaceful gift in exchange for months of labored breathing.

And while Mom’s small black cremains box lacked a houndstooth accent, it lovingly and ironically restored the classic, understated, svelte ideal she envisioned for her last stylish walk across the Rainbow Bridge.